The desirability of recycling waste materials is well known. Numerous arrangements have been proposed for permitting the recycling of various waste materials. However, for recycling to be effective, it's imperative that the recycling unit be able to store both recyclable and nonrecyclable waste materials without the likelihood of contamination of the recyclable waste materials. Moreover, due to the numerous different types of recyclable material, it is often necessary to further classify and separately store different types of recyclable materials. This often results in numerous separate storage containers taking up a considerable area of a proprietors valued floor space.
Alternatively, it has been proposed to compartmentalize a single storage container to accommodate both recyclable and nonrecyclable waste materials. For example, arrangements of this type are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,372,726, 4,557,658 and 5,001,978. Although these arrangements do not take up as much floor space as multi-container arrangements, the proprietors' storage capacity is greatly reduced requiring more frequent disposal of waste material. This obviously leads to greater expense to the proprietor which is undoubtedly passed on to the consumer. Also, the compartmentalized storage containers can often lead to contamination of the recyclable material either stored in the waste storage compartment or at the disposal site because of improper handling by an operator.
The present invention is directed to overcoming the disadvantages of the prior art recited above as well as achieving advantages neither disclosed nor contemplated by the prior art which are discussed hereinafter.